


The Flyboy

by NellieOleson



Category: Stargate SG-1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 02:29:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2092290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellieOleson/pseuds/NellieOleson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, I was bitching about the use of the word "flyboy" in SG-1 fic.</p><p>And splash_the_cat said this:</p><p>YES. Jack should only ever be called "flyboy" if he gets sucked into some alien machine and does a dramatic re-enacment of Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly."</p><p>"Jack, stop licking my food! That's disgusting!"<br/>"BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZ BZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZ."<br/>"Look, flyboy, don't make me break out the Raid."</p><p>So naturally, I had to write a story around it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crystal Light

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of old but it's not archived anywhere else so I'm putting it up here.

Sam barely managed to restrain herself from smashing the crystals into as many pieces as possible before shutting down the frequency generator. Stupid alien technology and its stupid illogical power requirements. She growled in frustration, which wasn’t something she would normally do, but she was alone in her lab and it seemed like a perfect opportunity for frustrated growling. She was considering getting up to kick the source of her frustration when a familiar voice interrupted her budding tantrum.

“Hey, Carter.”

She took in a slow, deliberate breath and disconnected the power supply she had been working on. Why hadn’t she built a force field for her lab? Or shut the door. Her brain took a shot at optimism and tried to convince her that he hadn’t been there long enough to actually hear her growling. She propped her elbows on the bench and cradled her head in her hands. “How long have you been standing there, sir?”

“Oh, not long.”

Her head dropped to her bench top and she tried to take some small comfort from that. His timing was usually better, or worse, depending on how you looked at it. She was about to readjust her mood when he threw the other shoe at her.

“What’s with the growling?”

Asshole. She turned just in time to catch the smirk on his face before he quickly --and wisely, she thought-- replaced it with a reasonably sincere look of concern. She tried for a neutral expression, but must have failed miserably, because he was approaching her in a manner she could only label as cautious. Surely he’d picked up on the fact that she was in a smash-things-to-pieces kind of mood.

The smile resurfaced as he got closer to her, and as much as she wanted to stay angry, she had always had a weak spot for that look. In a completely appropriate kind of way. Settling for extremely annoyed, she pointed at the two large objects in her lab, “I can’t make these things work.”

“You can’t make these things work?” Jack’s eyes did their best to reflect the amazement in his voice. “Wow, Carter, it must be bad. You’ve been reduced to one-syllable words. All of which I understood.”

He walked over to the uncooperative things in question while she mentally aimed a stream of multi-syllabic words at his back. His hand hovered over one of them, but he had learned –the hard way, of course-- that touching random alien things in her lab was not always wise. He glanced at her, and when she gave him a small nod, he ran his fingers over the smooth metallic surface of one of the pods. “It feels…odd.”

“I know.” She had spent a lot of time just touching the surface of the pods since SG-3 had brought them back from PX9-873 four days ago. “I haven’t been able to identify the material yet, sir.” It was a triennium alloy of some sort, but its exact composition had yet to be determined. Whatever it was, it had a unique tactile quality to it. It felt warm and pliable, even though it was neither of those things and when she kept her hands on one for a long period of time, she found herself expecting it to take a sudden, ragged breath and come to life beneath her fingertips.

She considered telling him all that, but figured he would be just as content with “odd.”

He had one of the pods open now and was peering around the inside. “So do you know what they are? Besides big, metal eggs?”

“I know exactly what they are, I just can’t turn them on.” And why did she phrase it like that?

“Only because they don’t have eyes, Carter,” he said. “Have you tried talking dirty to them?”

She really needed to put more thought into the things she said around him. Her list of the unfortunate consequences of being obsessed with a man who had all the wit of a fifteen-year-old boy was growing longer every day. 

If you can’t beat ‘em… “Yes, I did. That didn’t work either, so I was just getting ready to take off my clothes and rub my naked body all over them. Would you mind closing the door for me, sir?” That might have been a bit over the line, but the look on his face was worth whatever bad things might come of it.

Her brief moment of witty superiority was enjoying its fifteen minutes of fame when he turned and sprinted toward the door. For a moment, she thought he was going to run away.

She should have known better.

He shut the door, locked it, ran back over to the pods and pulled up a chair.  
“Have at it, Carter. Let me know if you need a hand. Or two.” He rubbed said hands together and she could see a question forming on his face. “You wouldn’t happen to have any popcorn in here, would you?”

She really wanted to smack him, but that would have been inappropriate. In a completely inappropriate kind of way. She glared at him instead. “Are you done, sir? I really don’t have time for this.” Which was sort of a lie. Nobody else cared how quickly she got the pods working, but she didn’t want them to get sent to Area 51 before she had a chance to see them work.

“So no popcorn?” Jack asked, disappointed. Five years ago, she wouldn’t have been able to hold back a smile, but she had managed to build up a tolerance to his jokes. He would have to do better than that.

“Oh, come on, Carter. This is the most fun I’ve had all week. Why do you have to ruin it for me?” And then he had the nerve to look at her like a lost puppy. Maybe fifteen was giving him too much credit.

She held her gaze. And her tongue.

“Okay, I’m sorry. Maybe I can help. What seems to be the problem?” He put a hand up before she could say anything. Not that she had anything to say. “In small words. Or pictures. Pictures would be nice.”

She looked at him doubtfully, but what the hell, maybe reducing the problem to its simplest elements would help. Her fingers tapped absently against her thigh as she tried to think of a way to describe photonic crystal technology in Jack-speak. “The power supply for the transport pods consists of an array of ten photonic crystals,” she explained while drawing a crude representation on the whiteboard.

“Wait. Transport pods?” he interrupted.

Her fingers moved to massage her temples while she forced herself to count to ten. She thought he’d been kidding when he’d asked her if she knew what the pods were for.

“You don’t even know what they are? I wrote an entire report on them.” A very thorough report. With charts and graphs. “And gave it to you. In person. What do you do with your paperwork, sir?” Surely there was some sort of event horizon surrounding his in box from which no file ever returned.

“Carter,” he reasoned, still channeling the wide-eyed innocence of a two-year old. “You know I don’t understand anything you do. What would be the point in me reading your reports?”

She narrowed her eyes, not buying his dumb routine, but not willing to call him on it either. It was a game she enjoyed. He frequently showed up in her lab after briefings, feigning ignorance so she would give him a personalized version of her presentations. She had obviously spoiled him to the point where he didn’t even bother looking at her written reports.

Ignoring his protests, she began again. “The pods are designed to transport a single entity from one pod to another.” If she could figure out how to turn the damn things on.

“Like the Stargates.”

She wasn’t sure if that was a question or a statement. But it didn’t really matter; her answer was the same for either. “Not exactly.” There was a subtle, but important difference between the technologies.

She considered going back to the whiteboard, but it would have been a wasted trip. Her artistic skills weren’t really up to the task of drawing what she wanted to explain to him. “The Stargate network uses wormholes to transport objects as energized matter streams. These are based on quantum teleportation.” She paused, still searching for an analogy he would understand. “It’s more like a fax machine.”

He was quiet for a moment and she thought she might have to resort to the whiteboard after all. “So wouldn’t there be two of whoever got…faxed?” That was a great question, and it made her realize just how good he had become at acting dense.

“No.” She winced. “In order to overcome the uncertainty principle, the original object has to be destroyed.” He looked at her like she just told him ‘The Simpsons’ had finally been cancelled.

“That’s just wrong, Carter. Nobody should make stuff that does that.” His brows furrowed and she expected him to ask for an explanation of the uncertainty principle. Apparently he was just going to take her word on that. “Why exactly would we be interested in this anyway? It seems inefficient. Especially since we have that big circle that will transport a whole bunch of people at once. Without the destruction part.” Another good point, maybe having him around to brainstorm with wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“Think smaller scale, sir. These would be perfect for an emergency escape system. We could put them anywhere. The president could keep one at the white house, enabling him to quickly evacuate in the event of an attack.” She was envisioning an entire network of them, zipping people from place to place in an instant. If they could replicate the technology. Only two pods had been recovered, and the difficulty of creating a machine capable of analyzing and reconstructing all the atoms in the human body with exact precision was no small task. But with a working model, she thought it might be possible. And fun. Lots and lots of fun.

Jack seemed unimpressed.

“I guess that’s a good selling point. You can never have too many emergency escape routes.” He sat down at her bench and started toying with her multi-meter leads. “So anyway, power supply. Not working.”

“Well, like I said,” she continued. “The power supply is made up of crystals. When-“

“They don’t look like crystals,” he interrupted again, poking at the power supply resting on her bench.

“Not in the conventional sense, no. They’re just called crystals because of the way they’re constructed. Picture a lattice structure made from Lincoln Logs.” Really, really, really tiny Lincoln Logs.

“I like Lincoln Logs,” he offered unhelpfully.

Of course he did, she reasoned. They were designed for five year olds.

“Who doesn’t, sir?” Yes, he was going to be a huge help here. It was possible she had overestimated his acting ability.

“Exactly,” he enthused. He was examining the power supply with genuine interest now. Maybe if she threw in a Tinker Toy analogy, he’d really make some progress.

“Right. Anyway, when these crystals are placed between a frequency generator and a receiver, they’re engineered to release energy in a specific band. I’ve calculated the frequencies needed for each crystal to operate at maximum efficiency, but when I interface the power supply with the pods, I get nothing.” No lights, no camera and definitely no action. It was all very frustrating.

Jack looked thoughtfully at the crystals for a while. “So you have each one of these things running at a different frequency?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve calculated the input frequency needed to ensure maximum output from each crystal.” Calculated and calculated and calculated until her eyes felt like hopping out of their sockets and making a break for greener pastures.

“Why don’t you try running them all at the same frequency?” he suggested.

Great idea. Was the idea of maximum efficiency so hard to understand? “That doesn’t make any sense, sir. The crystals have unique structures that require a precise input in order to produce maximum gain at the output.”

He held up a hand. “Ah, it doesn’t make sense to you. This is alien technology, Carter. Who knows what they were thinking. Just because you understand the photomat crystals on Earth, doesn’t mean you understand these.” He seemed extremely pleased with his argument and she wanted to smack him around with some of her calculations. But what if he was on to something?

“Okay,” she conceded. “You might have a point.” Her mind began tinkering with this new puzzle and she found herself back at the whiteboard. “Maybe if I tried the mean frequency of all the crystals.” She began reworking her equations from this new angle.

“Right, glad I could help.” Jack knew he had been forgotten. Abandoned for the sake of some sort of evil math he didn’t even want to understand. “I’ll just go get some lunch or something. Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“Uh, sure. Thanks, sir.” She was still writing and he was pretty sure she had no idea what he had said to her, but he’d bring her some food anyway.

“Don’t get naked while I’m gone,” he called over his shoulder as he walked out.

 

******

 

Jack headed to the mess hall, paying no attention to his surroundings, because the little naked Carters running around in his head had a much higher entertainment value. Naked Carter in her lab, naked Carter on the gate ramp, and right over there was a naked Carter on a motorcycle. Very nice.

He jumped when the hand grabbed his shoulder.

“Ack!”

“O’Neill.” The hand released him.

“Jesus, Teal’c. I’m too old for that.”

“I apologize. You did not respond when I called your name.” Teal’c was looking at him curiously, head cocked to the left.

“No need to apologize,” Jack said quickly, hoping to keep Teal’c from asking why he had been so distracted. “What’s up?”

“Nothing is up, O’Neill,” Teal’c answered, falling into step beside him. “I merely wished to inquire if you would join me for lunch.”

They were still near Carter’s lab, which was nowhere near the mess hall. Jack almost asked Teal’c why he was looking for him down here. Was everyone on to the fact that he spent most of his time on base in Carter’s lab?

He decided to put that thought on the back burner for now. “Sure, Teal’c, I was just on my way there.”


	2. Jaffas For Algernon

When they finally made their way back to Carter’s lab, they found the place buzzing with excitement. Lights were blinking, machines were humming and Carter was bouncing back and forth between the pods and the power supply.

“Carter. Take a break. I brought you a sandwich. And,” he added with a sideways glance at Teal’c, “a Jaffa.”

“Major Carter, it appears you have succeeded in making the alien transportation device function.”

Jack looked at Teal’c. How the hell did he know what these things were? He turned his attention back to Carter, and caught her glaring at him. Again. Forget to read one report…

“Yes, Teal’c, I think I have.” She gave Jack a look he couldn’t interpret. “Actually, it was Colonel O’Neill who figured it out.”

“O’Neill made them work when you could not?” Teal’c cast a suspicious eyebrow at him.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. But he did point me in the right direction,” she clarified, giving Jack a wry grin. “And I haven’t actually tested them yet, but at least I can power them up now.”

“Well, what are you waiting for, Carter? Put those Lincoln Logs to work.”

“I was waiting for you, sir,” she answered with a smile.

Me? Jack stared at her while he tried to put her words in the right context.

“I thought you might want to watch,” she added, destroying all his attempts to keep his imagination from hijacking her words for its own devious purposes. Naked Carter appeared in his mind asking him if he wanted to watch. And yes, yes he did. She had to be saying this stuff on purpose.

“It was your idea that made it possible,” Carter continued, oblivious to the mental torment she was putting him through.

Of course. My idea. “So who’s going to be the guinea pig?”

“Not so fast, sir. I think it would make more sense to try a lab rat first.”

Yes, yes it would. “Of course. Makes perfect sense, Carter. Guinea rat then.” Did they really have lab rats at the SGC? He had never considered that. Where did they keep them?

Carter magically produced one and placed it in a pod. Jack felt a momentary flash of pity for it as the door closed. Hopefully, Carter had the things working well enough to keep the rat in one piece, but he kept his fingers crossed behind his back just in case. Carter did some stuff to the control panel while Jack continued his silent vigil for the rat’s safe trip and Teal’c dared the pods to malfunction with his whole being.

The power supply came to life with a soft blue light and the faint scent of ozone. He was waiting for the really exciting stuff to happen when Carter began walking toward the pod that had been empty. “That’s it?”

She turned and looked at him. “That’s it.”

Huh. Well, that was nowhere near as exciting as he hoped it would be. He should have stuck with the naked Carter parade. She had to bend over a bit to see if the rat fax made it and he added that picture to his naked Carter gallery. “So? Did he make it?”

She reached further into the pod –and bent over a little more-- and pulled out one perfectly assembled rat.

“It appears to have worked Major Carter.” Teal’c had taken the rat from her and was examining it. Jack thought he saw a smile form on Teal’c’s face when the rat twitched its nose at him. He caught Carter’s eye and could tell that she knew she might have trouble getting the rat back. “Major Carter, I wish to volunteer to be transported next.”

“Thanks, Teal’c, but you can’t. These are designed for one life form at a time, your symbiote disqualifies you.”

Jack spoke up before Carter could volunteer herself. “Yeah, Teal’c, you and Algernon sit this out. I’ll do it.” He thought he caught a hint of alarm in Carter’s eyes. “You think it’s safe, don’t you?” The rat still seemed fine.

“Well, yeah. About as safe as anything we do around here, anyway. Are you sure, sir? I could show you how to use the controls and go myself.”

“Of course I want to do it,” he lied. “I live for this stuff.”

What was the worst that could happen? If something went horribly wrong, he’d probably be dead, so he wouldn’t have to deal with the horribleness of whatever had gone wrong.


	3. Metal Egg Things Of Doom

“Are you sure I don’t need to be naked for this, Carter?” The slight blush she couldn’t control was egging him on. “Because I’d be more than happy to get naked for you.” She looked up from whatever she had been fiddling with and smiled at him. So worth being subjected to weird alien fax machines. Then her smile took on an evil edge and he began to worry.

Her next words kicked his mind into overdrive. “I’m sure you would, sir. Maybe next time.” With any luck, he’d find a way to hold her to that.

A deep, rumbling laugh invaded his fantasies. Oh yeah, Teal’c. He’d forgotten about him in his quest to get naked in Carter’s lab. Carter’s blush deepened and he realized she had forgotten about him also. He found himself inordinately pleased about that.

“What’s so funny, Teal’c?” And if he made some sort of comment about anything he had witnessed in the shower, Jack was going to kill him. Normal Earth men knew that information was sacred, who the hell knew what a Jaffa would reveal. His panic was unnecessary; Teal’c only had eyes for the rat.

The rat was perched on Teal’c’s shoulder, sniffing at his ear. “This creature’s whiskers amuse my skin, O’Neill.”

Amuse his skin? “You mean they tickle you?” Please let that be what he meant. His Teal’c translator had become pretty accurate over the years, but that one was straining it.

“Tickle.” Teal’c removed the rat and held it so they were nose to nose. “Yes. I believe that is the correct term.”

Oh yeah, the science geeks at the SGC were definitely going to be short one lab rat. Maybe they could pretend it died.

“Okay. Now that that’s settled.” He turned and caught Carter eyeing Teal’c like he was a big, fluffy bunny --or something equally cute. Jack had never thought of Teal’c as having such a high cuteness factor. But there it was, in all its rat-loving glory. Time to distract her. He liked Teal’c, but not when Carter was looking at him like that.

“Carter?” He prompted, waving an impatient hand in front of her face. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she replied a little too emphatically. She headed back to the controls with one last wistful look in Teal’c’s direction. Maybe she’s looking at the rat. “Just a second, sir.” There was a brief orange flash as she finished with the settings. “Okay, just climb in and I’ll shut the door.”

His earlier panic was starting to resurface. “Will it hurt?” He knew how pathetic that sounded, but he had a right to be concerned. He was about to get faxed. Like a memo.

“I don’t think so, sir. You shouldn’t notice anything.” She squeezed his hand before closing the door.

The pod was dark and small, and Jack decided he liked it much better from the outside. He tried to keep his mind occupied with naked Carter, but hand-squeezing Carter kept showing up. In a fit of unmanliness he would never admit to, he decided he preferred hand-squeezing Carter. He had almost merged the two into a naked Carter who squeezed more interesting things when he thought he felt something crawl up the back of his neck. The sensation passed quickly and he –mistakenly, he would discover later— decided Carter had been wrong, and that he had noticed something. He was wondering if he would feel anything else when the pod was suddenly flooded with light.

Carter’s face appeared in the open door a moment later, and although he was glad to see her, he was also confused. “What happened? Did the power supply quit working?”

“No, sir.” She held out a hand and appraised him with an expression he found slightly unsettling. “How do you feel?”

“I feel fine, Carter. What happened? Why didn’t it work?” He took her hand, grateful for the assistance. These pods weren’t designed for tall people, maybe they should have asked Fraiser to try them.

Her eyes lit up. “It did work, sir. You’ve been successfully faxed,” she informed him while pulling him out of the pod.

“Really?” Well that was weird. But he had definitely emerged from the second device.

“Indeed, O’Neill. Could you not tell?”

“No.” Well, there had been that brief sensation of something on his neck, but his mind was already starting to pass that off as nervousness. It seemed an inadequate sensation to be caused by a machine designed to take you apart, make a copy and destroy you. And about that. “So I’m not really me anymore, right?” That was going to keep him up at night.

“Well, technically, I guess you could say that,” Carter admitted. “You’ve been entirely reconstructed from new matter, but since you’ve been put back together in the exact same configuration, you’re still you.”

Yeah, that wasn’t helping. He was just going to have to stop thinking about that.

“Anyone want to get some food? I’m starving.” And he was, even though he had just eaten with Teal’c. Maybe the machine didn’t fax his lunch.

“No, thanks, sir. I’m going to go over the log files from the transporter and see if I can make any sense of exactly what it’s doing.” Yeah, real exciting, Carter. “And you should probably stop by the infirmary and have Janet check you over. Just in case.” In case of what?

“Great idea, Carter, Fraiser’s always looking for an excuse to poke me.” Teal’c was so infatuated with his new pet Jack didn’t even bother trying to drag him along. He stopped in the doorway to rub his back on the casing. “Hey, Carter, you might want to give Janet a call so she has some idea of what to expect.” Because there was no way he was going to try to explain what Carter had done with him. “Tell her I went to eat first.” His stomach growled in approval of his travel plans and he headed for the mess hall.

 

******

 

He was just finishing his second piece of pie when Daniel fell into the chair opposite him.

“Daniel. When did you get back?”

“I’ve been back for two days, Jack.” Daniel was eyeballing his tray and he felt an irrational need to protect his ice cream.

“Huh.” He wrapped an arm around his bowl, “So how was…wherever you were?”

“Hot. It was very hot.” His eyebrows drew tight behind his glasses. “Are you okay? You seem a bit antsy.”

“You know, I do feel kind of itchy. But Carter just faxed me and it might be some weird side effect.” He put his empty bowl aside and replaced it with a piece of chocolate cake.

“She faxed you? What are you talking about? And why the hell are you eating all this….crap?” Daniel waved a hand over the table and Jack had to restrain himself from smacking it away from the vicinity of his cake. Daniel was really starting to bug him.

Jack jumped out of his chair. “I gotta go see Fraiser. Why don’t you stop by Carter’s lab, she can explain everything. Maybe she’ll even let you try it.” He was gone before Daniel could ask him anything else.

He took his cake with him.


	4. Fly On The Wall

Sam was too engrossed in her work to notice his entrance. She had become one with her laptop and was poring over large amounts of data, stopping every few seconds to record something in a notebook. This wasn’t the first time and likely wouldn’t be the last time Daniel had gone unnoticed in Sam’s lab.

“Hey, Sam.”

She started at his voice and answered him with a smile. “Daniel. When did you get back?”

Was this some sort of a joke? “I’ve been back for two days. How is it no one knows that?”

She frowned. “Really? Maybe I’ve been spending too much time down here.”

Maybe? He let that go and moved on to the reason he had some in the first place. “What did you do to Jack?”

Her eyes snapped up and Daniel was surprised at the amount of concern in them. “Why? Did you see him? Is he okay?”

“He said you faxed him. And yes, I did see him; he was on his way to see Janet. He seemed a bit off.”

Now he had Teal’c’s attention also. And was that a rat? Where would Teal’c get a rat?

“Was he not well, Daniel Jackson?”

“He was itchy. What’s going on, Sam?” He watched as her eyes widened and she returned to her computer. Well, that wasn’t the answer he was expecting.

“Sam?” he tried again. The only answer he got that time was a raised hand. A brief one at that. Daniel knew better than to push her for answers, so he poked around the transport pods while she typed furiously.

He found some interesting markings on the inside of one of them and was about to call Teal’c over to get his opinion of them when Sam jumped out of her chair.

“Shit. I need to talk to Janet.” She left her lab in a whirlwind of muttered curses and computer printouts, Daniel and Teal’c close on her heels.

 

******

 

Jack was already in the infirmary when they arrived. She followed the sounds of his displeasure and found him behind a curtain holding Janet’s penlight above his head. Janet turned at the sound of their footsteps, relief written across her face in large red letters.

“Sam, I was just about to call you. Colonel O’Neill claims you faxed him and he’s experiencing unusual side effects.” She put her hands on her hips. “And he won’t give me my penlight.”

Sam pretty much ignored everything Janet said. “I need your help, Janet. I think something was in the machine with Colonel O’Neill.”

“What machine?” Janet looked confused, and Sam remembered that she was supposed to have called her before Colonel O’Neill showed up.

“The fax machine?” Jack tossed the light on the bed and moved toward her. She saw Janet snatch the penlight from the bed as he grabbed her by the shoulders. “What did that thing do to me, Carter?”

 

******

 

Three hours later, Jack was still waiting for an answer. Carter and Fraiser were holed up in a lab somewhere trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with him. Daniel and Teal’c had tried to stay in the infirmary to keep him company, but his patience was in short supply and they had made some excuses to abandon him rather quickly.

He thought he could smell Carter, but that couldn’t be right. Or could it? Because now he could hear her too. She was talking to Fraiser. About him. About things he understood just enough to know he should be worried. Things like ‘overwriting DNA’ and ‘complete transformation’. They weren’t in the infirmary; they were walking down an adjoining corridor, returning from whatever lab they had disappeared to. He shouldn’t have been able to hear them. Or smell them. What the fuck was going on? And why was he still so damn itchy?

His eyes had to wait a good two minutes before they got the chance to verify what his other senses had been telling him. Carter was still rambling on about something, but Frasier had stopped short and was gawking at him.

“What?” he snapped at her. He felt bad when she recoiled a bit at his voice; it wasn’t her fault. It was Carter’s fault; he should be directing his frustration at her, not Janet. Carter had caught on to the fact that she had lost Janet’s attention, and she finally looked in his direction.

“Oh my God, I didn’t expect it to happen this quickly,” she said softly, to no one in particular as far as Jack could tell. She took a tentative step toward him. “How do you feel, sir?”

Jack didn’t care for the way she was looking at him, and it was none of her damn business how he felt. The only thing she needed to concern herself with was how she was going to fix whatever she had done to him. He was planning on making that fact perfectly clear to her big, giant, genius brain when Daniel and Teal’c finally returned.

Daniel started speaking as soon as he walked through the infirmary door. “Hey guys, how’s everythi-“ His words dropped off as soon as he came around the curtain. “Whoa.” He looked at Carter. “Uh, Sam?” Although Carter didn’t answer him, Jack got the feeling there was a very meaningful, silent conversation going on between the two of them.

It was Teal’c who finally made him aware of the severity of his condition. Teal’c had come in silently behind Daniel, because that’s what Teal’c did, and the expression on his face told Jack that something was seriously fucked up. Hell, even the rat looked appalled and Jack was suddenly grateful there were no mirrors in the room.

“Carter? What’s going on?”

And for once in all the years Jack had known her, she didn’t waste his time with long-winded, scientific crap that he didn’t want to hear. “There was a fly in the transporter with you, sir.”

Oh, for cryin’ out loud. “Are you kidding? Because I’ve seen this movie. It doesn’t end well.” A fucking fly. How uncool was that. Why not a spider? A spider would have been cool.

He didn’t really have the patience to dwell on could-have-beens. He looked her in the eye, or tried to, something weird was going on with his vision. Normally multiple Carters would have made him happy, but today he figured that was a bad sign. “Can. You. Fix. It?”

“Yes,” she stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Really?” He wasn’t expecting that. He thought he’d get an ‘I think so, sir’ or maybe just a flat out ‘no way in hell, sir.’ Carter was just full of surprises today.

She had the nerve to look slightly affronted by the fact that he was questioning her abilities. And most days, she would be completely entitled to that, but she had just turned him into a bug, so he thought some ability questioning was a fair trade.

“Yes, really. I may need to call in some outside help, but-“

“Wait a minute.” Something wasn’t right with here. “We’re 28 stories below ground. Where the hell did that fly come from?” Because it sure as hell hadn’t had a key card.

“Well, sir, it could have come in through a ventilation shaft. Or maybe it hitched a ride in your clothes. That’s not really important now.”

The hell it wasn’t. “My clothes,” he mused out loud. “I knew I should have been naked.”

 

******

 

Daniel left Teal’c in the infirmary to keep an eye on Jack and went searching for Sam. Janet pointed him in the right direction and he found her in a research lab working with the geneticist she had requested. He watched them work for a few minutes before walking in, enjoying the atmosphere of intellectual problem solving.

“Daniel.” Sam didn’t look too distressed, and he figured that was a good sign. “We’re almost done here. How’s Colonel O’Neill?”

“Hungry.” At least they thought he was hungry, he was getting hard to understand. “And restless. Is there any reason we can’t take him to get something to eat?”

She considered his question for a moment. “No. Not that I can think of.”

“Great. He’ll be glad to hear that.” As would Janet. “So how are things going in here?” He watched the other scientist place a sample of something in the electron microscope.

“Good. We should be ready in about thirty minutes.” The geneticist gave her a speculative glance and she reassessed her timeline with a sheepish grin. “Okay, maybe an hour. Tops.”

“What exactly are you going to do to him?” he asked. She had never explained her plan to any of them, and since she had seemed so confident about her ability to fix Jack, no one had bothered to ask.

“We’re going to use carbon nanotubes to detect and mark the unwanted DNA sequences and then send him through the machine again. I just have to program the transporter to ignore the DNA that contains the marker we’ve attached to the fly DNA.” She paused to flash him an excited grin. “We should also be able to use this process to remove Goa’uld symbiotes without harming the host.”

“That should come in handy. I’m sure Jack will be pleased to know that his adventures as Flyman made that possible.”

She smiled at that, making him sad that he had to leave. Jack was nowhere near as pleasant to watch. Even when he wasn’t turning into a disgusting fly thing.

“Very funny, Daniel. You should go save Colonel O’Neill, I’m sure he’s bouncing off the walls by now.”

“Actually, he’s been sticking to the walls,” he admitted. “He was trying to get to the ceiling, but Janet threatened to have him restrained.” And speaking of Janet. “I’d better get going. I’m guessing you need Jack alive when you de-fly him.”

“Yes, Daniel. That would be nice.”

And with that, Daniel left.

 

******

 

"Jack, stop licking my food! That's disgusting!" Why had he agreed to this?

"BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZ BZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZ," was the only response he  
got. Although Jack had been losing the ability to speak properly, Daniel was sure he was making the buzzing noises just to be annoying. Because as far as he knew, flies didn’t actually say ‘buzz buzz’.

 

"Look, flyboy, don't make me break out the Raid,” he threatened in a low voice.

“Daniel!” Sam had somehow materialized over his left shoulder. Whoops. Not low enough. “You know, there’s a good chance he’s going to remember this. You shouldn’t be threatening him with pesticides.”

Daniel was too relieved to see her to be concerned about Jack’s feelings. “He keeps licking my food, Sam. I’m not a saint.” He hadn’t been hungry anyway, but she didn’t know that and he felt he deserved some sympathy for having to deal with Jack all day.

She obviously didn’t share his views about that. “Actually, Daniel, he’s probably vomiting on your food, not licking it.”

“Thanks for that, Sam. Can we fix him now?”

She smiled and patted him on the head. “Sure, Daniel. Help me get him back to my lab.”


	5. Epilogue

Jack awoke with a start to the bright lights of the infirmary. When his eyes cleared, he could see that Carter was sitting beside his bed. And much to his relief, there was only one of her.

“Hey, sir,” she said softly. “How are you feeling?” She scooted the chair closer to his bed and placed a hand on his arm.

“Human,” was all he could manage to think of. It was a good thing she didn’t touch him more often, it wasn’t good for his cognitive abilities.

“Well, that’s what we were aiming for.” Her thumb had started to make small circles on his arm and Jack couldn’t stop himself from staring at it. She pulled her hand away with a small frown and he immediately regretted drawing her attention to it. “So, do you remember anything?” It was a fair question, but Jack got the impression she only asked to distract them from the touching incident.

That was probably a good idea, so he went along with it. “Yeah, I remember everything.” At least he thought he did. And how would he know if there was something he forgot? “Where’s Daniel?” he asked suspiciously. “He threatened me with Raid.”

She laughed. “Well, sir, you were licking his food.”

“Let’s not talk about that, Carter.” Because really, that was not a conversation he wanted to have with her.

“Yes, sir,” she agreed. She stared at him for an uncomfortable length of time. “It’s good to have you back to normal.” The softness in her eyes was slowly replaced with the evil-Carter look. “Relatively speaking. Sir.”

“Are you making fun of me, Carter?”

“Of course not, sir,” she claimed unconvincingly. “I would never do that.”

They sat in silence while Jack tried to think of something to discuss that would keep her there. Sadly, his brain wasn’t cooperating and he kept coming up empty.

Finally, she stood and slid the chair back. “I should let you rest.”

He was getting sleepy. Being a fly took a lot of energy. But there was one thing he needed to say before she left. “Carter,” he called as she turned away from him. “If anyone ever refers to me as ‘flyboy’ again, shoot them.”


End file.
